The digital home is now becoming more complex with the myriad of new and emerging digital devices intended to address many user and consumer needs such as communication, entertainment, privacy and security, etc. However, given the complexity of the emerging digital home and digital environments generally, users who are technologically challenged may find it a daunting and intimidating task to manage their home networks and interconnected digital devices. Moreover, new paradigms are emerging oriented to delivering media content to and the consuming of media content at the home. Many of these paradigms rely on communication of application specific data to and/or from the Internet, as opposed to conventional telephone or broadcast video type applications.
In practice, a customer typically subscribes to basic transport services from a network “Service Provider” (e.g. ISP—Internet Service Provider, cable provider, fixed wireless providers, ILEC—Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier, or CLEC—Competitive Local Exchange Carrier). For example, a customer may have broadband Internet access, via cable modem, digital subscriber line service or the like. Digital video service may be provided separately. The network service provider manages these basic services, at the logical network layer, typically at layers 1, 2 or 3 of the OSI model. While network services and associated devices may operate minimally at those levels, they operate at those levels only to support operations at OSI layers 1, 2 or 3. Many applications, however, involve higher level service logic for applications that view the network transport as a transparent pipe. The current internet applications delivery and management architecture, and many devices or management systems based on it, require a server with robust processing and storage capability to be located at the network operations center, not in the home. For voice over internet protocol (VoIP) type telephone service, for example, the VoIP service provider operates a session initiation protocol (SIP) server or the like, and each user has only client functionality. The network transport layers are transparent to the IP packets containing the voice and related signaling. The SIP server, however, controls the call set-up, tear-down, billing and the like for the voice call services. With such an architecture, the major capabilities and functionalities connected with providing application services from the server throughout the network reside on the server and supporting elements, all of which are located in the network operations center.
With the existing server-client (terminal) paradigm, it is currently the case that many of the application service providers also find it difficult to provide and support new emerging technologies at the home. That is, service providers are challenged to select a platform that can evolve with their applications. With existing service architectures, the launch of new services compounds complexity to the core network, adding to both capital and operating expenditures.
Thus, as new services come to the fold, often with the requirement of new equipment, e.g. integrated access devices (IADs) for VoIP and set-top boxes for streaming video, the management of the customer premises equipment (both hardware and software) complicates customer support requirements. Managing the home network environment can be an inhibitor to the adoption of new services, both from the user perspective and from the perspective of management by the service providers.
A need exists for a new paradigm, with improved convenience for the user and easier management for the application service provider. In that regard, it would be desirable to provide a multi-services application gateway device that provides not only a variety of IP-based communication services, but also offers a centralized management capability for application services.
Product transactions have become one of the popular web application services provided via the IP-based network. In a typical IP-based product transaction system, a customer accesses and buys/orders a product (or service) on a seller's server, through a PC/client. The server provides a web site interactively displayed on the PC/client which illustrates products and products-related information or lists of Hyper-Text linked product seller websites. The user of the client/PC can order the products on the interactive website provided by the server or the Hyper-Text linked product seller website. The typical IP based product transaction system, however, requires the customer to search and visit each product order website one by one. The customer has to obtain any updated product or product seller's information at each website individually. Moreover, any information or process required for payment or delivery of the products has to be entered by the customer at each transaction, typically at each different website.
These ordering services utilize the paradigm in which the server is on the network and the customer's client software runs on a PC or the like. To the extent that gateways have been proposed for customer premises deployment, the gateways have been relatively passive with respect to such e Commerce transactions. The gateway may provide security, but is not involved in the transaction interactivity.
A need exists for a product ordering service merged with a digital home system where compelling product transaction features are provided and such product information and user's information including payment and delivery are updated and managed by a third party entity outside a user's premises.